Sunday, May 30, 2010

Balsam Poplar

After much figuring things out, we have discovered that a giant tree which was felled near our place is a Balsam Poplar (Apparently some sort of cottonwood, but we haven't seen any of the bits of snow-like white debris on this street.) The whole wooded area is supposed to be developed into a natural park, which is not at all bad when compared to the leveling of wild areas in order to put in businesses and the like. However, it was unnecessary, and so I find it appalling. I have collected several branches from the tree, and also have pictures. Lots of pictures.

This was taken while standing on the base of the tree. All that open space you see was not actually open space before. They let the giant tree fall and knock down many trees behind it.

This was from a little over the half-way point. You can see the top of the tree. You can also see some of the trees behind it that have knocked into each other. All along the trunk of this tree were also both knocked over trees and lots of branches, so it was hard to tell what was what.

These are my feet standing on the trunk, so you can get a sense of how large it was.

And my foot against one of the places where the branches was connected. It is big enough for two of my feet at least. (I would have stood on it, but the weather was wet and I would most likely have slipped. I wasn't sure how far the ground was below me, since it was covered with a mass of branches, but I'm pretty sure there was water underneath, and I didn't want to risk running into snakes or rats or whatnot.)

For more size comparison, here are some of the other trees around. Not sure how tall they are, but these are no more thick than some of the branches on the felled poplar.

And now facing toward the opening of the woods, this was taken about a quarter of the way. You can see next to it at the very end a regular sized tree. I'm sad that I didn't get a picture of the actual stump, because now it is totally rotted, thanks to the northwestern rain.

I have more, but I think I'll end it with this last one. This is what is happening to the right of the tree. The tree stump is to the left of the path, and was completely out of the way. There are other trees that are larger than this one in my city that are hard wood. And these trees come right up to the edge of main roads. After peeling away bark on some of the branches and inspecting the tree, it seemed in perfect good health. So, in my humble opinion, this was unnecessary destruction of a relatively old tree.

While I'm glad that all the trees haven't been taken down, I don't believe that rearranging nature for entertainment is a fabulous use of resources.